After having a surprise flawless run during the group stage, UKCSGO caught up with Adam “Adamjc” Colwell and Matthew “meffew” Godsell to talk about their mixes performance, Adam’s recent upset wins and the prospect of the Irish rifler finally getting himself on HLTV.
Coming into this event there wasn’t too many expectations of your squad, but you have gone above and beyond what anyone would have thought, going 7-0 in the group stages, how does that feel?
Adam: Coming into it we didn’t have expectations, and just thought if it happens it happens and honestly thought we would be a top two team, but not rated very highly. It feels like we have shown especially over the last LANs when we had Earl, Meffew we can play well, and then alongside that the team chemistry in the mix it just felt super synergised.
Meffew: One of the big advantages is that I would describe ourselves as a ‘vibe stack’, and compared to some of the last mixes this is the one probably with the best vibes and one of the best individually. One of the main reasons is that we have Earl and Dutchy co-IGLing, and then Dutchy has been a demon on T-side Vertigo and then it all just works.
Talking about your squad, your players individually have all been successful, Dutchy going Royals and then Earl playing in Belgium recently, having not got experience individually as much, how much are you learning?
Meffew: I wouldn’t say we are less experienced, but the fact Earl has gone to LAN finals in Belgium is great but we have all played and known each other for years and we used to play in teams together. We are all pretty even in experience but now we are playing in different team and learning new things and then bringing that to the table. Something I haven’t said is that Earl as an IGL is just so good at listening to what the team want to do.
Adam: Obviously Xeth has loads of experience as well playing with UMX back in the day with Artist and Extinct, and that shows in the middle of the round he is really good at just calming people down especially me who gets quite jumpy and try force the issue too much, and so Xeth brings me down and its such a good experience. Â I think what Meffew has said is true that they haven’t got as much experience as we do and we have grown with them over time. Earl was in inters, I was in open, he went to main I was in inters and now we are both playing in main together and it has felt like I have caught up and that my progression as a player has gone up quite a bit. They also push me a lot which is perfect because I always want to be better then the other people in my friendship group, and so that pushes me forward. Â MMS DMs me how many deathmatch kills he gets and then I always, in my head, want to get more and we have a really healthy competition and it pushes me to get better overall.
You mentioned other players helping each other, for instance Ping has been doing it a lot and same with mezii, are there any specific players who have took time to take out of their playing time to help you?
Meffew: For myself, EMPEROR has been such a big help both out of game and in game. For instance we used to have a Scottish super team, Me, Wolfie, Dutchy, Synergii and Yen1 and he would sit with us for hours on Nuke talking about rotations and protocols and that helped so much. And then another example that isn’t to do with us is Ping helped MMS and he has been very vocal about how helpful he has been, and then you think about how much MMS has improved he is now on the same team as him. We were quite lucky and our friendship group is really big and there are always people who are better than you in this group and you just learn from them, everyone has gotten better as a result of it.
Adam: For me the one person that has helped me, even though it hasn’t been that much is arTisT. I message him like “Hey I lost the official can you go over it with me”, he has also encouraged me to reach out more to him and that is a big benefit. Another person who has watched loads of demo’s with me and has helped me improve is Fett1s. He would literally watch so many demos, and doesn’t have the most experience the amount of demos he has watched helps so much, he is a pure demo merchant. Big shoutout to him he helped my team out last season so much when he coached for us. Again big shoutout to arTisT who has said that if I ever need any help to reach out and I definitely will be doing that soon.
Specifically for you Adam, you have upset 7AM here and Dripmen the other day, you are on a hot streak, what does it take to upset a team like that?
You have to go into it and not have any expectations, even going into the Dripmen game yesterday I thought we would lose, I obviously didn’t say it to the team as that is definitely a bad thing. But I still thought in my head before the game that I would be out of this soon and then go back to team practice, it is a last minute mix for that game. Then for the 7AM game I felt like we where actually blessed with the group, no one really challenged us today in any map and we only lost 10 rounds to one team which was Shoobies’ team. We pushed ourselves and, Dutchy describes it as the flow stage, we’re literally in our own zone and I think that getting back to the original question, people will underestimate my teams and me and I do have the sense that people think I am not capable of playing well, especially in these games. I think that I am a much better player than I was even six months ago, due to me grinding and working hard, that is ultimately what it takes.
In the NA scene, they are having a big debate on players not trying hard enough to make content, because there are 100 advanced players and more of them need to make content or they won’t get recognised. You’re well known for your content, would you think it has helped you get recognised?
Meffew: You could say it has helped getting connections and people asking me to put clips into the video, and as much as it is a good thing and I am so glad people enjoy it, I don’t think its even content because it is not something I am making, just putting people’s stupid things together. I think that for Voo, he does super interesting videos, same as Penguin, and they really deep-dive into very specific parts of the game. I think that they are really good and I do not know how easy it is to do, you need to find a gap in content and go ‘something is not being covered, I should go and do this.’ This was the main thing I found out after making one video from Epic 29 from just our team that went and from Epic 34 the next LAN after Covid, I just thought why don’t I make one for everybody. I do not think it is vital but I think it helps for getting your name out, and then when you have this profile you have to then prove yourself.
Adam: To add on to that, even for having an org, if they see that you are getting impressions or that people are taking an interest in you, it is ultimately how you can branch out and make a name for yourself. You can have a pro Esport career for about 5-10 years maximum, and then when that is done, what can you do after? Do you want to go back into a nine to five normal job or do you want to stick around like F0rest who streams and gets 3k streams, Smooya is another good example will do content and get over thousands viewers when he streams, and will probably make more money from streaming than for any org, so I definitely think it helps to do content.
My final question for both of you, how realistic is it that AdamJC can get HLTV?
Meffew: For the next games we are playing against Psych Ward and we played the core of them at I69 alongside the likes of Azuwu and Earl but I think this team by the fact we have Dutchy and Earl Co-IGLing with each other is just unreal, we don’t have to do anything, they do the thinking and just tell us what to do. I genuinely think we have a good chance and they almost lost to an absolute mud team so I think we have a good chance. Like the rest of this LAN, it is just a glorified game of UK PL.
Adam: I upset Frazehh with Big Time Rush and this team is a big step up, I am not saying we are definitely going to do it, and it will be a hard game but if we bring the same attitude we have had previously then we can win, but especially overnight , you are not the same team again. We were on such a hot streak and that flow can stop. Currently we have two chances for me to get HLTV and I really hope we can do it.
Meffew: This is the best opportunity to do it. A special thing to say is that Earl is not recognised enough and people do not understand how big of an asset he is. When he was younger he was a bit silly and didn’t give himself the best image, and he is saying that is still hanging over his head. I personally don’t think it is and people have totally forgotten that part of him and have seen this person who is making deep runs every LAN. It is important to say he is a really good IGL who will listen and is super analytical.
UKCSGO also managed to grab Adamjc after his team had managed to progress, later on in the day, to the Upper Bracket Final, there by securing a Top 3 finish and HLTV.
You got that long awaited HLTV, just talk us through that game and how it feels to get yourself on HLTV?
Adam: At the start of the game we were very stressed because we had only just arrived, because our taxi came late so we had no chance to warmup or anything. Since they were the higher seed we had to play our map pick first, so there was pressure on us to win the map pick because we knew Mirage was the second map and we dont play Mirage even in pugs and that so we knew we would take the L on Mirage. We got through it and got in the zone pretty fast on Ancient we lost maybe the first five rounds then everything just clicked again, sick calls from Earl and Dutchy as usual. Its a relief to get it because i wouldnt say there was pressure on it, but it was just a meme at that point, but im happy to get it and get the win as well.
